Book trailer: SoPhia, the novel (2012)

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Roundabout 2011

This is the best time of the year, even though it's not quite over, it's nearing completion and so there's plenty inspiration for reflection of what's happened, the promise for the year ahead to take a leap off this one, and the current that carries me through the few weeks to the end. The waterfall of writing that awaits come December/January. It's also the first week of Zil Haj. There are incredibly powerful, wistful memories tied to these days of the trip I made with my parents and siblings in 2005.

Hajj was Rumi-esque, reflective, soulful, cohesive for us and a wholesome, contemplative experience.
Hajj was an expansion of soul, heart, spirit, mind.
Hajj is as no other journey has ever been.

And every year seems to have it's own set of trumps, triumphs and setbacks for whatever reason. But the progress is always undeniably forward and upward with faces touched by sunshine.

It's been a roundabout year all-in-all, but what an exhilarating one indeed!

Thinking things

There was a time when I wrote diligently and copiously at this space, this blog. Social media demands, life and bookish stuff have made for a rather divided year in terms of time and loyalties. From June and the short story challenge to now, much has happened to bring me to the near end of this year. Gratitude fills the pockets of air around me. Belly of Fire launched in Polokwane on the 21 September to a packed media event and sparked off fabulous energy for our book tour. Love Books hosted WordFire for the Johannesburg launch on October 5th, by far the most delightful of the launches yet, and Exclusive Books launched the book for us in Durban this past weekend, Sunday 23rd.
It's onward to Cape Town now, soon after Eid. My heart overflows with the engaged responses. The love and support has been tremendous. And 2011 has delivered Beauty in oh so many ways, at my door.

All booklaunch pics at Facebook and flickr

Chain Gang Challenge

Aaah, fascinating Monday it is out in Johannesburg... I've just arrived off a flight from Durban, after a weekend of family fun in the sun, and I'm sitting with a team of writers out in Mellville, on a chain gang writers challenge for Short Story Day South. So check out the website as our stories go live!

www.shortstorydaysouth.co.za

Xxx

Belly Of Fire: An Anthology

Belly of Fire is a metaphor for the anxiety and fear that we hold within ourselves; the voices of those who are disempowered by racism, poverty, war and gendered abuse, voices that remain silenced, are housed as fire in our bellies.
The stories in this collection grapple with real, everyday issues that face ordinary people. The poetry interspersed between them reveals emotions that arise from dealing with these issues, reflecting on them, using them to rebel or act out against the pressures that try to silence us.

Dodging bullets and filling holes

Evolution of the mind is a beautiful thing to behold. While reading The Museum of Innocence last week sometime, I was mesmerized by the layers of expressiveness, the obsessive, deep emotion, the frivolous made real in so many ways. Orhan Pamuk's writing can be easily put down for another day, or drowned in so totally that the rest of the world of work is reduced to background noise. Please note spoiler alerts from here onward, for if you plan on reading the book!

And so, the reason for my having bought and read this book on a whim quickly revealed itself to me. You see, while reading the book, I was taken by the idea that I could, after what seemed like ages, read a book just for the fun of it.
But then, I got to the latter chapters and was treated to the conversation between the author and the protagonist. And I was completely blown away. I realised then, that this was no mere coincidence. I was certainly not just reading this book for the fun of it!

This book turned uncanny in it's message to me. It was also rather unpredictable.

Readers of this blog will know that along with the courses that I present, I have been engaged in the research and write-up of a political biography over the past two years. This means that I have had the honour of meeting and interviewing some interested veterans of the anti-apartheid struggle; various gregarious and surreal personalities from around the world, Paris, the UK, South Africa and India.
The journey has been hugely satisfactory for the most part; a delight in many ways.
But I've said this to a few friends, that the writing of biography also feels on some days like a project of dodging bullets and filling holes. I know - it sounds a lot dodgier when it's said that way. It's not a literal exposition at all. But it's every bit as crazed and meandering as its meant to sound.

Until I read this book, that is. Orhan Pamuk's written conversation with his protagonist, Kemal Basmaci, is for me as a biographer, ultimately revelatory and highlights the many features of the biographical process and the importance of giving it authentic subject voice.

And many things regarding the telling of the tale; defining the idea that it's easy to want to write 'everything' that gets dumped in your lap. That there are many people who are loathe to the idea that much will be revealed therein, details which they had hoped would never see the light of day. [Some will go to lengths to make sure this status quo remains unaltered.] That there are some who will make fraudulent claims to history, when in fact they were never really at the front line, as the unsung heroes really were. There are many who will have the story from their viewpoint. And then, there is the view of the protagonist. And this is all that matters. In this way, the biographer's job is made clear cut, if not simpler.

I learned these things from Orhan Pamuk.
And I think that the path has been cleared for me to go on.

Everything for a reason, then. No coincidences, only plan.

S

The Museum of Innocence

I had never considered the possibility of an eloquent expression of anguish, until I picked up a copy of Orhan Pamuk's 'The Museum of Innocence'. This is my first foray into the world of writing that encompasses Pamuk's genre of work. Having won a Nobel Prize in Literature in 2006 for his novel 'My Name is Red', Orhan Pamuk is widely read and loved, and I can see why.

Learning...

I've missed blogging, what with all the writing and editing and living that's been happening. Also, a lot of learning for me in this new year. I'm just learning that strawberry yogurt is an excellent (and guilt-free) quencher when you have the munchies at just past 1am, as is now the case.
I've also made note, that some of us weren't born to be pawns, and if we're treated that way, then we will leave the chess game and make our own way across the board games of life until we find our own space to breathe, to grow, to be.
And of course, even though I believe that everything in life happens for some or other reason (often not immediately understood), we have to pay attention to how life seems somewhat randomized, that we will collide as atoms do and that's one of the most beautiful realities about this whole business of living.
PS: This is a one a.m ramble. And at second read (I refuse to edit this!) it does sound a bit heavy and vent-worthy. But. I'm looking forward to an exciting year and a string of new projects and opportunities. More learning. More being me. More of this and that. More writing! And endless love.

Belly of Fire, the anthology that waited patiently for me to pick it up from the shelf of 2010's busy schedule, is on the road to being born. Yes, like a pregnancy. Speaking of which, I will be an aunt sometime soon.
And as of this week, I will be lecturing the Feminist Theory course for Hons students in Sociology at Wits University with Daughters are Diamonds as core text alongside Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex. Accompanied to this is an exciting reader of fabulous material to be discussed in the seminars. The possibility of a play (if the department agrees) and a film to be reviewed by students. It's strangely satisfying, being back at my alma mater. And surreal at the same time, walking around the old haunts, remembering things I may have inadvertently forgotten.
I'm all set for an interesting year ahead.
That's the certainty that is my companion for now.
Good night, blogmites.
xoxo

Insane in Time

It's been an insane year. So much so that it's evident in me not having blogged here for almost two months. That's seven weeks or so. My reference to insanity is not said as a bad thing, although I do miss my blog.
But the insanity is also a fabulous time to reflect on the passage of the ten months that 2010 has been, and the very fleeting two remaining months that will be.
Even though its been a very quickly melting year, I've often in the past not been able to account for these quick spurts of time. This year is most different, and I have much to be thankful for.
And so when I have those moments when I come up for air, I know and remember to be grateful to the Source of all my creativity, starting from the breath that sustains me on a daily basis.

And to 2010. Thank you for being the rollercoaster of delights that you have been. Thank you for the promises that you have laid before me that will continue this gregarious festive energy well into the new year. Thank you for the highs, the open doors, the lifted ceilings, the fresh air, the wonderful people that I am able to work and play with and the very thing that makes life worth every bit: Love.

What point would the M4K blog have if it wasnt to appreciate the advent of the blook in its name, Memoirs For Kimya, right?
M4K will be distributed as a gift book by some women's empowerment initiatives and corporates in the coming weeks. And I will be off to Germany with Daughters are Diamonds and my research on violence and gender during the first two weeks of December to present at a conference at Humboldt University. And then, its the new year. The New Year.

God is Great.

This Place I Call Home

Book Review: This Place I Call Home by Meg Vandermerwe (Modjaji Books, 2010)

Home is a place of rest. For an observant South African writer, spanning the expanse of time, history, culture and landscape, the concept of home is also a thematic vehicle.

Meg Vandermerwe’s debut book, ‘This Place I Call Home’ is a collection of ten stories that easily captures the feel of what it is to be South African from just as many points of view. Peering through the eyes of a hijack victim, a hunter, a domestic maid, an exile about to return home and a range of others, the reader is made to see how identity is constructed, altered and challenged in a country that has seen many versions of reality in its time and across the reach of its political horizons. In addition, it also captures what it is to be a foreigner in South Africa especially with the spate of xenophobia that we witnessed not too long ago. Needless to say, each of the protagonists grapples with haunting emotional challenges in their personal spaces that are inevitably reflected by the socio-political landscape. These stories tell us much about where we have come from as individuals, separated by the colour of our skins, the hierarchy of our place on the social ladder, and the baggage that we carry as we move forward as South Africans.

Vandermerwe also manages to capture the authentic voice of each of the protagonists in her stories, which is an impressive feat on the one hand, but can be a bit jarring for a reader moving through the stories one after the other. One has a sense of listening to a line-up of ten people narrating each of their encounters, or reliving a particular moment that was formative or impactful, and then it’s on to the next one. More so because of the shift in timelines. But it is also precisely because of this that the many colours of their narratives standing side by side, tend to blend into a remarkable anthology of South African-ness that makes for a must-read for historians and anthropological enthusiasts.

But there’s more. We all have significant markers of identity and home. That is, how we make sense of both where we are, and who we are in the world is determined by the associations we make with particular things, specific encounters. Vandermerwe highlights these and the reader will find it easy to draw on the nostalgia that these markers evoke: a mango tree, a dictionary, the anticipation of a holiday or having heard of the story of someone returning home from exile. There are stories of loss and grief and hope and redemption to be found in this little gem of a book. Protagonists are challenged by disease, broken promises, xenophobia and a range of subjects that the reader is able to identify with; these stories will carry forth from the local to the global context an authentic flavour of the multi-coloured African dynamic. And the resounding theme of what it has meant to be South African, over the span of time and politics, comes through in the sentiments expressed by each of the protagonists; a domestic servant, a madam, a hunter’s aid and his master.

Vandermerwe deals in astounding detail with the issue of HIV/Aids, the inevitable cloud of superstition that surrounds the disease and the reliance or the faith that people place in traditional vs. modern medicine. The Red Earth is probably my favourite read in this anthology. Its characters don’t jump out at you; rather they sit beside you and allow you a peek into their deepest thoughts. They reveal their fears and prejudices. To me, that is the most remarkable accomplishment of the fiction writer; the ability to give the reader the opportunity to more than identify or sympathise with the character, but to really walk in their skin, taste and feel and dream as they might.

I particularly noted how Vandermerwe is able to denote class struggles in the local context, and the resultant mindset that arises from having to know your place. Inferiority is a powerful voice. Often more so than superiority. It reminds you mostly of the things that you do not deserve. And that you should know your place. This is the marvel of the post-colonial era. And it continues to be echoed in the economic reality that separates the haves and the have-nots. The writer achieves this balance in portraying both the yearnings of those on lower rungs of the social ladder as well as the expectations of those who teeter on the edge of the higher rungs of this shaky ladder. And so the reader is made to see at once the numerous layers of South African history as well as contemporary South African society beyond the shining tourist manuals. We also learn that if there are spaces that are sometimes unforgiving to South Africans, that these spaces can be even more threatening to ‘aliens’. In our insistence to claim our place, our home, we label the outsiders mercilessly. Strong notions of other-ing resound through the narratives. And we are made to ask questions of whether our existence is validated by this defining of ‘other’ and the subsequent removal of the alien other from what we claim to be our space. Narrative is a safe yet interesting way for these themes and debates to emerge. This Place I call Home is a book that manages to do this.

That the reader is made to read in the authentic voice and viewpoint of the character with such ease is the most enduring and positive attribute of this writer’s art. And this is what brings these stories home for us.

Greedy for Air

I've been enjoying my round of fiction reads this month.

Just last week, I got through "The White Tiger". Much can be said about a book that openly reveals that greed and survival are really not the same thing. The human mind forever fascinates me. The limits we place upon ourselves, as well as the new frontiers that are challenged in those finite boxes of sanity and insanity are largely unexplored. There are, I believe, yet to be seen examples of how much the potential of the human mind will surprise and enthrall, and yes, even horrify the 'clanging masses' rest of us.

Taking from the White Tiger, although situated in India, the story has echoes of relevance for South Africa; not just from an 'Indian' point of view, but also if we were to take both a human and then even an inhumane outlook. Okay, let's not pretend that we're one swathing mass of loving humanity; there are amongst us those who will sell their mother's left hand given the right blend of conditions.

Writer's like Adiga are adept at bringing that 'potential' of the inhumane human to the fore; of highlighting the irreverent contradictions of what it is to be a human being. And while I would like to imagine, still, that it takes much of a stretch of the imagination, I know at some rational level, that I would be kidding myself: I had barely put the pages of The White Tiger to rest, when the ET debacle exploded right in our midst. Not even for 7lakh rupees. Just. Dead.
Was it because of years of pent up Hatred?
Was it an act of Love?

I don't really want to know. A human life was slaughtered at the hands of people maimed by his own acts of terrorizing them over years. Do we really reap what we sow? This might be an apt example. Still, a human life is so easily rendered to a bag of bones and flesh and blood that oozes back into the womb of the earth. We're so easily turned back into the clay from which we came.
All material, mortal. There it is again. Mortality looks back from the mirror everyday.

Which brings me to the new book that I am reading, and reviewing, this time, for an Afrikaans paper: 'Say You're One of Them,' by Uwem Akpan. I am just learning, that childhood is a commodity in Africa. Akpan brings this idea to life in his book.

And. midway through the book, I am blown away. Now to scrape and claw for some moments of objectivity. Watch this space.

S

Frankenstein's monster...

Brutal imaginings
make their way into
my consciousness.
Sensation reverberates;
Blinding, Putrid, Bitter.
A final clang signals the winding hour;
I turn to clay; grey and cold.

The villain that hovered
as an image,
a formation of
words
and paper,
a scrawl of ink and graphite,
and yes,
someone elses dreams,
dashed-

Is a fluid vision;
a Flesh and Bone
Reality.

I feel like Frankenstein.
Please hold the champagne, though.

A lump born in the throat
falls into the
ulcer-ed pit,
heaving with
the knowledge.

Realisation
sinks
in:

So,
They do exist.
Beyond
my Wildest
Imagination.

Rajasthani Romanticism

Jaipur is insatiably beautiful. From beneath the squalor and decay, can still be felt the pink sands of time and matter that form the legacy of this ancient city that juggles with some grace, the modern and the antiquated.

The cities beauty stands out for me because it is an unadorned one: its certainly not an obvious beauty, in fact its a rather oblivious one.
But at some level, it is also a taken-for-granted regal, yet unnoticed one.
Beauty is in the bones of Rajasthan.

I have the pleasure of being here at a time when the city is host to both a Literary Festival as well as a Heritage Festival. These are run in parallel, creating a rather combustable creative energy. And sparks fly! Like when Prof Nandini Sundar of Delhi University says, "Fuck the State! We will be heard!" or when Hanif Qureshi says, "when all those rather confused pieces come together to make sense of identit(ies), then we call that literature" and even more so when Asma Jehangir says that she's disappointed with India's arrogance while admitting that Pakistan is 'the menace'. Or Girish Karnad's comment earlier today when he said that VS Naipual must have been stone deaf. Why? Because he wrote about India, but he failed to write anything at all about music, and it's indelible influence and meaning in the Indian context.

Sparks fly, indeed, when you find yourself at the core of a melting pot of grand ideas, challenging minds and fanciful collaborations.

I've also managed to see two plays at the Birla Auditorium, thanks to the Heritage Festival and the Jaipur Virasat Foundation. One, 'Salesman Ramlal' is the Hindi adaptation of Arthur Miller's 'Death of a Salesman', and features a cast including Satish Kaushik as Ramlal and his wife played by Seema Biswas... and the other was directed by Naseeruddin Shah. Comprehensive reviews to follow. I'm not quite quenched with this cup of Jaipur dynamism, drink on, drink on!

With much love from my moonlit hotel room,
at almost 2a.m. Indian time,

S

the lure of the desert

Sometime early December, I made my way to Dubai for a wedding. The reason was festive, a wedding in the extended family, and the meeting of many known faces for the same reason. We loved the energy there, and it was a great way to end the year.

Two weeks later, the father of the bride drowned in a jet ski accident in Lake Malawi.

Life and death are cyclical. Of course, we know this. But the proximity of these events in dimensions of time, space and relativity make for a surreal mosaic: What a way to begin the year!

Time is a treadmill at high speed.
Another trip to Dubai this evening, feels like the spiral draws and engulfs, the wheel turns and the hamster runs it.

Not a wedding, this time, but festive all the same, considering the oasis in the desert born of stories beyond the 1001 Arabian Nights.

There's certainly something to be said about the lure of the Arabian sands and the passage of time.

Interview with Fordsburg Independent; Local community paper in Johannesburg.

the circularity of blood and dust

Writing is farcical, if it is not able to create a shift in some way. It must, in some small way, undo the latch to the dusty box that is our potential, and reveal the raw material inside that seeks to become something majestic, at least.

Writing, just like anything else that we might do, is undue banter and rather superficial, if it is not accompanied by a whole range of purposeful conditions. Or at least, just one. A purpose. A need to adjust the everyday meander, dissolve the self-doubts and dissipate the fears of failing and of succeeding all at once. Writing is and must. Writing with a sense that something more must come of it. It must be loaded with that intention to do and be for the greater good; even if the path getting there is strewn with thorns. Writing is a vehicle and a weapon, a building and a bridge. Each might be used or abused; the action is fueled by the intent.

Writing, if you really think about it, is an act of worship.
It is a show of love. And a way to bribe the creative soul into production.
Writing is also a show of hate. A means to burn and destroy the wasteland of minds that prefer the route of the blissfully ignorant. It purges these, tearing unused sinews apart, washes away the rust and then forces the flow of new contemplation into the midst of these healing recesses.

Tedious tasks done, writing is the balm. The disease and the cure.
The bitterness and the sweet are found to be one.
Love is, life is, being is.
Bitter. Sweet. Bittersweet...
Living is.
Dieing is.
Bittersweet.
Living-Dieing.
Circularity breathes reason into being.
Writing gives it form.
The vehicle moves onward, transporting thought from one to another. Me to you.
A building of ideology soars skyward.
Glass shatters at a crazy altitude.
Someone slips.
Someone falls.
A grey suit hits concrete pavements of unreason; it bears the mark of the martyr. Red becomes brown.
Brown is earth.
Like ashes to ashes; like dust to dust.

Living is dieing
Dieing is living
Writing is Living-Dieing
Reviving the dust, the ashes, the blood and the being.
Re-creating, moving, becoming, seeing.

"Keep breathing. Everything else is a bonus."


Copyright 2009 Shafinaaz Hassim

You cannot read 'Loss'

A striking quote from the movie: Memoirs of a Geisha...


~ At the temple, there is a poem called "Loss", carved into the stone. It has three words, but the poet has scratched them out. You cannot read "Loss"... Only feel it.~ Narrator.

Biting off pieces to chew on

I have just done reading Jodi Picoult's "My Sister's Keeper", and discovered that there are far too many moments of writing that I could play a kind of contact sport with, many that I thoroughly enjoyed. There were also times that I had to put the book down for a bit and distract myself because of the fullness of the emotion that Picoult's characters are able to bring out in the reader. In myself.

Here is one of the extracts that I liked reading. Tightly writ, loaded in so many ways... A reminder of how I would like to tie my more purple prose together:

(Picoult, pp89-90)
"Is there any place on earth that smells better than a Laundromat? It's like a rainy Sunday when you don't have to get out from under your covers, or like lying back on the grass your father's just mowed - comfort food for your nose. When I was little my mom would take hot clothes out of the dryer and dump them on top of me where I was sitting on the couch. I used to pretend they were a single skin, that I was curled tight beneath them like one large heart.
The other thing I like is that Laundromats draw lonely people like metal to magnets. There's a guy passed out on a bank of chairs in the back, with army boots and a T-shirt that says Nostradamus Was an Optimist. A woman at the folding table sifts through a heap of men's button-down shirts, sniffing back tears. Put ten people together in a Laundromat and chances are you won't be the one who's worse off.
I sit down across from a bank of washers and try to match up the clothes with the people waiting. The pink panties and lace nightgown belong to the girl who is reading a romance novel. The woolly red socks checkered shirt are the skanky sleeping student. The soccer jerseys and kiddie overalls come from the toddler who keeps handing filmy white dryer sheets to her mom, oblivious on a cell phone. What kind of person can afford a cell phone, but not her own washer and dryer?
I play a game with myself, sometimes, and try to imagine what it would be like to be the person whose clothes are spinning in front of me. If I were washing those carpenter jeans, maybe I'd be a roofer in Phoenix, my arms strong and my back tan. If I had those flowered sheets, I might be on break from Harvard, studying criminal profiling. If I owned that satin cape, I might have season tickets to the ballet. And then I try to picture myself doing any of these things and I can't. All I can ever see is me, being a donor for Kate, each time stretching to the next.
Kate and I are Siamese twins; you just can't see the spot where we're connected. Which makes separation that much more difficult.
When I look up, the girl who works the Laundromat is standing over me, with her lip ring and blue streaked dreadlocks. 'You need change?' she asks.
To tell you the truth, I'm afraid to hear my own answer."

Anna Fitzgerald, 13. My Sister's Keeper, pp89-90, by Jodi Picoult.

Cape Town: Fiddunya hassanatau (The beauty of this world)

Being in Cape Town taught me a few good things. One, that writing should never be taken for granted, and two, that the low literacy levels in our country will always mean that the work of a wordsmith will always be driven by the need to engage readers. To really create in them a thirst for reading. And to make these readables available and accessible in more ways than one; so its not only about learning how to read, but about creating a culture of reading. And so that reading is also an affordable pass-time. A new initiative by Zukiswa Wanner of 'Madams' fame, called ReadSA is engrossed in this project in many ways.

The nose to grindstone image refers.

Cape Town was also a time of rejuvenation for me. I was happy to be plugged into all that the city had to offer me: the smell of the ocean, the embrace of glorious Table Mountain, which served as a backdrop to the launch of M4K, and the throng of people that I had the delight of coming into contact with over the three days that I was there. It started off on flight. I left Johannesburg at 6:55am Saturday morning. I arrived in Cape Town to meet a group of amazing ladies for breakfast at Origins cafe.
Nielfa, Ayesha, Saarah, Nisrien, Saberah, Haseena and Maryam were my coffee companions; a superb start to a riveting weekend.

With this lovely lot, I got to see the District Six Museum, and the Planetarium. Also got to see the Gardens. Walked by the National Library, and planted myself outside the Slave Lodge until I was whisked away to do some bookish things, and to check out the launch venue for the very first time (I went on a limb with this one! in tandum to my advisory team: Nielfa, Yaseen and Nazia for the most part) But to my absolute delight, this venue turned out to be the most incredible of venues I have used for any previous launches or other social engagements.

Meeting my darling friend Nazia Peer was a highlight for me. The fleeting time we had together was enough to tear at me for some time; the quality of which always makes up for the luxury of 'more' in life. Saturday night also turned out to be the dinner and musical in honour of a cousin whose engagement we were there to attend. Boys side party that lasted well into the late hours or early hours; whichever way you need to look at it. Needless to say, I met friends and family that I have not seen in a good while from as far as small towns around Polokwane, Nelspruit, etc. All colliding at this one festive spot in Cape Town or Rondebosch to be more precise.

And so it came to be that Sunday took us from the Waterfront, where we were staying, to the Athlone Civic Hall in attendance of the grand engagement celebrations. Speeches started at 11am and went on until about 1ish in time for grumbling bellies to be filled to satisfaction. Speakers included Ebrahim Rassool, MP and Mr A.Kays, whose work is cited in Daughters are Diamonds. Thanks to a feisty guest who recognised me as the author of DaD at some point, I was introduced to a friendly Kays saheb. Kays speech was short and sweet and bordered on the quest for Layla (girls name) to finding her Majnun (because he hadnt been told that my cousins name is Muaaz) Rather innovative of him in any event. And at first, I thought he might be named Qais, seeing as the original Majnun in the persian tale is called Qais.

And so I met Qais. Or rather, Mr.A.Kays. A wonderful gentleman. And a writer, of course. I also met Judge Siraj Desai and his lovely wife in that fuss of a moment. Desai declined the invitation to the launch due to prior arrangements to meet with Che Geuvara's daughter. Should that be censored information? He didnt say, and so here you go.

And almost time for the launch. I'm meeting people, still. Friends like Luq and more family... People who know me because of whose daughter I am. People who last saw me when I was just that tall (A wavering show of hands somewhere near my navel to show how diminished I may have been back then)

Brother wants to take a drive up to Micassa. Stepping out of the city for a bit. To subdued realness. A little bit of time travel, to visit Shaikh Yusuf. The views are breathtaking. I may have left a few breathes behind. A dirt road leads up the incline, and looking back in view of raised fortified walls, a curving road and some canons not-in-use, balancing still... the feeling overtakes me, that this is a moment in time that may not be measured by the date on my calendar, or on the blackberry in my bag. I relinquish the offending mechanism to the boot of our car and walk a little faster so as to catch up with the rest of the family.

The launch was nothing short of amazing. My noteworthy surprises were not over. Lubna, another of my dearest friends, stopped over between her delegatory role at the IPSA conference and on her way to her flight back home to Durban. She is officially the first purchaser of pre-launch Memoirs For Kimya at the Jozi Book Fair, and managed to make an appearance at the CT one too. The Bo-Kaap was an apt placement for the bookish event. I loved the energy generated there, the people I met, the quality of engagement, the view of Cape Town that twinkled below our feet in that raised glass box that was Bo-Kaap Kombuis... and the embrace of the mountain in the background. It is very difficult not to be affected by the incredulous flow of inspiration that fills this city. It is incredibly difficult not to fall in love with this place. I feel blessed to be able to visit again, with the launch of my new work, my celebration of soulful writing, and to plant the seed of writing inspiration in others, as I hope I have.


Monday held more for me; a call from Exclusives, Wordsworth books and a visit to District Six for books, books and more books. Also got to lunch with family, make serendipitous stops in town and outside a strangely familiar place called Bingo, before finding my way to a pretentious pavement coffee shop in wannabe bo-kaap to say my goodbyes to Nielfa, Yaseen, Nazia and Muhammad H, my charismatic programme director for Sunday's launch.

*Deep Breath required here for these goodbyes that Im never good with*

Here's to the joy of blessed moments, and knowing that life makes perfect sense being exactly where we are. Here's to Cape Town, until we meet again.

M4K is off to Cape Town...

I have wonderful memories of my first book launch in Cape Town in 2007. Daughters are Diamonds was well received at the Cape Town Book Fair that year, and went on to produce a momentum that resonates still. It's time to visit the shores of this beautiful city once again, with a string of friends waiting there, and of course, with my new publication: Memoirs For Kimya.
Ben Williams of BookSA made special reference to the event here: http://news.book.co.za/blog/2009/10/13/au-courant-three-indie-book-launches-on-our-october-radar-screen/

Also, I will be chatting to Nancy Richards on SAFM (104-107fm) tomorrow at 1:00pm.. or a little after 1.. Tune in to listen or call in if you wish... Audio streaming live at www.safm.co.za

"We move through life as it moves through us. We make up stories in our minds.
And often these stories overlap.
We hope with all our heart.
We dream. We love, often deeply. We experience some gains and some losses.
Each of these moments leave an imprint on the rich tapestry of our souls.
Sometimes the only way to share the awesomeness
is by whispering a few words on the wind.
'Memoirs for Kimya' is a collection of whispers
and a tribute to the many people we meet along life's journey."


WORDFIRE Press takes pleasure in inviting you to the launch of

Memoirs For Kimya by Shafinaaz Hassim

Date: Sunday 18 October 2009.

Venue: Bo-kaap Kombuis, 7 August St, Bo-Kaap; Cape Town

Time: 6:00pm